Toronto Star can’t decide if city’s dismal Earth Hour showing is “bright” or “dark”

In a blow to empty-but-well-meaning symbolic gestures everywhere, Toronto’s involvement in Earth Hour last weekend saw a considerable drop over last year. In 2009, Toronto’s eco-savvy reduced the amount of energy consumption by about 15 per cent. This year, Toronto Hydro recorded a power drop of 10 per cent, which, we suppose, is still nothing to shake a stick at, especially if one got that stick by ripping it off a tree. Hilariously, the decline in support for the no-power-hour seemed to disappoint Earth Hour booster the Toronto Star, which, full of hope and wonder, published the headline “Toronto goes dark for Earth Hour,” only to update the article two hours later with the headline “Toronto stays bright for Earth Hour.” It was the latter article that made it into the print edition.

Perhaps the saddest bit of rewriting is this:

The descending darkness spread across Toronto and the GTA as tens of thousands of people flicked the switch for their lights and prepared to spend an hour without the benefit of electricity. And that’s the whole point of Earth Hour—turning off the lights for an hour to take a stand against climate change. And more and more of us are participating every year—in fact, last year, Toronto recorded a 15.1 per cent electricity load drop.

turned into this:

At 8:30, the square went dark—except for the sign above Forever 21, which kept blazing, as did spotlights on the HNR tower at the square’s northeast end. The whole point of Earth Hour is to turn off the lights for an hour to take a stand against climate change.

Perhaps the paper has yet to delete one draft of the piece as a passive-aggressive reminder to Toronto. Or maybe, like Torontonians and turning off its lights, it just hasn’t gotten around to it.

• Toronto goes dark for earth hour [Toronto Star]
• Toronto stays bright for earth hour [Toronto Star]
• Provinvial Earth Hour Stats [Toronto Hydro]